Demonizing homeless won’t fix problem; practical solutions needed

By Paul Boden and Jennifer Friedenbach

August 18, 2015Updated: August 18, 2015 6:10pm

Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle

San Francisco Police officers Suhrke (left) and Gerrans tell Mele (center) and Junior, a homeless couple, to move their encampment from the sidewalk near Division and Bryant streets in San Francisco, California, on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2015.

San Francisco Police officers Suhrke (left) and Gerrans tell Mele...

San Francisco is, once again, back at a “tipping point on the homeless,” says Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius. San Francisco is affluent and vibrant; it shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of homelessness and poverty, opines columnist Debra J. Saunders.

Look beyond all the talk of urine, needles, feces, garbage and rudeness, and the real point stands out loud and clear. We need to create laws and punishments so people stuck in the vicious cycle of homelessness and poverty will create the conditions, in Saunders’ words, “for unrepentant recidivists to leave town.”

In other words: Get out.

In less-enlightened eras, mainstream newspapers in California touted the virtues of anti-Okie laws, sundown towns and ugly laws, laws that target “outsiders” who don’t fit in or are unpleasant to look at. They are at it again.

Homelessness and the associated entrenched poverty so visible in public spaces is occurring across the country. Fort Collins, Colo., is pushing “stay away” orders for disruptive behavior (not criminal offenses mind you, for being considered a nuisance); Sacramento has criminalized “possession of camping paraphernalia,” in other words carrying your bedding with you; Los Angeles police officers have recently been given authorization to destroy and impound homeless residents’ property with no notice. Many cities are now embarking on laws (like San Francisco’s) that make it illegal to sit or lie on a sidewalk.

But we can see change on the horizon. Chronicle columnists Saunders and Nevius need to read and study the Aug. 6 briefing of the U.S. Department of Justice that found clearing out encampments when no housing is available to be cruel and unusual punishment. The federal government has now released guidelines for localities urging them against the practice of citing, arresting and destroying the property of those camping on the streets.

What we need now is a news organization that is part of a citywide effort to restore the funding cuts for affordable housing that created homelessness in the first place.

Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle

A small homeless encampment at Division and Bryant streets beneath a highway overpass in San Francisco.

A small homeless encampment at Division and Bryant streets beneath...

Impoverished people did not decide, in the early 1980s when mass homelessness became a reality in urban centers, that it would be desirable to live outdoors. They were forced onto the streets by enormous reductions to federal housing. Local policymakers, and the monied interests that control them, have been bent on demonizing and dehumanizing people ever since. This led to the horrendous social policies that today we look back on with collective disgust. You are seeing them again today in the columns of The Chronicle.

We don’t need to heap added vitriol from Saunders and Nevius on San Francisco’s poorest residents. What we do need is columnists who will point toward a solution, not a mouthpiece to spread hate and pave the road to further gentrifying the city.

One of the most absurd ideas from Saunders is that housing is not the solution to homelessness. Yet we all know, nothing ends homelessness like a home.